I have been an enjoyer of superhero movies since my very early preteen years. While I was predominantly a Marvel fan before the Post-Infinity War Era, during which franchise began sputtering into a sharp decline, Sony had an especially strong year in 2018. They released Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse in December—which is still such a good movie that thinking about it makes me slightly less upset about the subject of this review—and Venom, the first installment in Sony’s soon-to-be trilogy was released a few months prior in October. Venom was, quite honestly, the most fun I’d had watching a movie that year. The writing was passable, with respectable messaging about human testing, pursuit of the truth, adaptation in the face of adversity, don’t trust billionaires, etc. It also had very solid CGI, with an impressively organic looking symbiote that to this day holds up better than Marvel’s recent iteration of Red Hulk. However, by far the most appealing element of the movie was Tom Hardy’s phenomenally pity-inducting portrayal of Eddie Brock, and his excellent dynamic with his symbiote (also played by Tom Hardy) Between the first film and the second, Let There be Carnage, there was an unmistakable charm to the series that made it not only possible, but also easy to overlook its flaws. The initial Venom duology, while not perfect, was fun. So fun in fact, that I had very literally counted down the days to the third and final installment’s release and finagled my wonderful friend into walking thirty minutes from campus to Phoenix Theatres to watch Venom: The Last Dance on release night. I have here an image of our real, raw reactions upon finishing that film.
Note Lily’s dead eyes. Note how hard I was trying to rack my brain for anything to compliment about this movie. My eyes were genuinely watering, not from sadness at the ending, but baffled frustration about what an utter pile of shit this movie was. To this day, one and a half years later, I am appalled at how severely this ball was fumbled. Venom 3 was a cacophony of bullshit almost the entire way through.
Now I know that this film had a generally neutral to positive audience reaction, and I cannot stress enough that this is going to be a review made in very bad faith, consisting of over a year’s worth of resentment. If you enjoyed this movie, that’s wonderful, and I have no desire to take that away from anyone, but I do not imagine we will have much common ground on this film, and I recommend you look for a less biased review if you are earnestly wondering about other people’s thoughts.
With that said, the film opens with the most in-your-face exposition I have seen, possibly ever. The opening scene is narrated by Knull, the ruler of the planet the Venom symbiote hails from, who helpfully explains to the viewer his name, epithets, and the entire backstory of how he became imprisoned. He continues, in Dora the Explorer-like fashion, to graciously explain the mechanics of the item formed by an exceptional symbiote/host will unleash him. All of this is said directly aloud, and the abridged version will be helpfully repeated by Venom multiple times throughout the movie, and all of these individual explanations were absolutely necessary. Throughout the film, characters elaborate on things a viewer paying even half-attention will notice. The woman with the Lichtenburg scars who has dreams of trying to save her brother from a lightning strike has to explain aloud, “My brother died in a lightning storm,” the other side character scientist covered in Christmas paraphernalia, nicknamed “Christmas,” who says, “Man I love Christmas,” and so on. The viewer is given a front row seat to every character’s thoughts on the situation; they are always saying precisely how they feel aloud.
The new cast also completely oversaturates the film. Along with Knull, they have added Dr. Teddy Paine, Rex Strickland, and the aforementioned Sadie “Christmas,” the first two of whom I only learned were adaptations of comic characters when fact-checking for this review (on account that they share absolutely no similarities beyong name with their comic counterparts. Dr. Paine isn’t even from a Venom comic). These new characters are employed at Area 51 trying to hunt down and study symbiotes, and far too much time is spent on them for how important they actually are.
It is important to note that the concept of people in power tracking down and experimenting on symbiotes was the premise of the first film, to much greater effect. The antagonist of Venom planned to use symbiotes to achieve immortality and eternal fame for himself. A point was made to show and not tell how willing he was to experiment on homeless people and his own staff to achieve this. His motivations were personal, and there is a marked descent into madness as he becomes more obsessed.
This film’s Dr. Paine is interested in aliens on account of the lightning (?), Strickland is only interested in finding symbiotes to kill them, and Christmas really doesn’t seem to give a shit about anything but Christmas. They have no personal goals with the symbiotes other than nebulously studying them, which they don’t seem very good at doing. Despite having access to a symbiote host, they have developed no measures to attack Venom that are any more interesting than what we’ve already seen in the last two films. These characters remain entirely static, save perhaps Strickland who gets an 11th hour pre-death change of heart throwing a few grenades at the Xenophages (doglike aliens sent by Knull to track down Venom.) Despite this stasis, they get at least 40 cumulative minutes of the 109-minute runtime to stand around and do little more than say, “Man I wish we had that symbiote,” or, “What are we gonna do with that symbiote.” Knull, also, Destroyer of Worlds, does absolutely nothing in this movie beyond throwing Xenophages at the problem. We will come back to this.
By and far the best elements of this movie come when the focus is allowed to actually be on Venom and Eddie. Their banter remains solid, their fights are well choreographed, and it is notable how comfortable they have become acting as a unit after their breakup arc in the previous movie. Unfortunately, Eddie’s dialogue does not seem to have caught up to this arc having been resolved. This movie’s humor is decent, but the emotional core is entirely built on beating a dead symbiote horse. As soon as Xenophages become involved and the two are on the run, Eddie melts into an absolute man-baby, and while this would be an understandable reaction to the situation at hand, it is completely unreasonable that he seems to place the blame entirely on Venom for the situation they are in. Eddie spends this movie ambiently being stressed out and gazing longingly out of windows, wishing for a normal life. If a viewer were feeling generous this would also be, to a degree, understandable if not for the major issue: we did this already! This is almost beat for beat the thought process that Eddie overcame in Let There Be Carnage, a longing for peace that is eventually overruled by the fact that he doesn’t want to be without Venom. We have already had a breakup and makeup spurred on by dire circumstances, and it feels not only out of character, but outright exhausting to watch happen again. Doubly so because Venom seems fully committed to making this work, as it were, trying throughout the film to get Eddie to enjoy himself, even a little in this situation that is, mind you, partially also Eddie’s fault.
This tension builds up to the absolute worst part of the movie: the climax. An army of Xenophages have infiltrated Area 51, a group of imprisoned and unnamed symbiotes break free and bond with the scientists, and a huge battle ensues. As all hope seems lost, Venom detaches from Eddie, merges with the Xenophages (he has never done anything akin to this before,) and sacrifices themself to set massive tanks of acid ablaze and kill all of them and himself, as well as all of the new symbiotes who were introduced entirely for five minutes of hype moments and aura. Eddie wakes up in a hospital with a government pardon, complete with a military official telling him something to the effect of “Yeah, you guys were never gonna get to stay together, dumbass.” Eddie goes to look at the Statue of Liberty all alone, and the credits roll. Playing Maroon 5’s “Memories.”
It has been over a year, and I still cannot completely believe how much of a complete and utter waste of time this movie was to watch. The franchise spends so much time and love setting up a dynamic between man and alien, coming to understand and support one another on a deeper level than either could ever achieve with anyone else. Working together to pursue justice, facing internal and external threats and problems, and always choosing to come together and move forward together. The films make you want to see them succeed, to come out stronger on the other side, because ultimately that is what they do. They work symbiotically to find a unique fulfillment in the life they choose. And this movie–the final installment, the last we were going to see of these characters as far as we can gather–spits in the face of an audience that dared to believe they could keep that bond, and scoffs at the people who believed the previous film’s message that these two were better together. The film flips you the bird, asserts that of course, tragedy was always how it would end, and plays Maroon 5 at you.
And my final, main grievance: in a Marvel/Sony classic move, the film has a mid-credits scene. In this scene, Knull proclaims that Venom dying means he’s unstoppable now, actually, despite not having been released from his imprisonment, and a cockroach crawling upon the remains of Area 51 approaches a vial of black symbiote goop. This mid-credits scene ushers in my prinicpal complaint with this movie: it is a bad movie on its own, but it is a horrendous final installment to a franchise. A boatload of characters are established and introduced, and then they do nothing. One of Venom’s most important villains is introduced purely to organize his henchman and shake his fist. A herd of symbiotes are introduced, just to die immediately. Venom is heavily implied to not even be dead, which is not only a further insult to audiences having dared to care about their sacrifice, but something that we will literally never get closure on, if Venom isn’t brought back in Marvel proper–and there has been no indication of this as a possibility.
Venom 3 was a movie that I really wanted to like. I have a very genuine fondness for the first two installments, and I truly wasn’t expecting a masterpiece–I don’t believe anyone really was. But the drop in quality, the squandered emotional climax, the bizarre and nihilistic messaging… Venom: The Last Dance was a movie that truly felt like the embodiment of wasted time, and I am content to move forward ignoring it entirely if I ever choose to revisit the Sony films again. Here’s to the ones that we got, I guess.
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